


skate fast, eat ass

by betakids



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Humor, House Party, M/M, but they're both professors jsfhs, vanessa and hermann are wlw mlm solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betakids/pseuds/betakids
Summary: It’s- well- There’s this guy.Hermann doesn’t know him.





	skate fast, eat ass

It’s- well- There’s this guy.

 

Hermann doesn’t know him.

 

-

 

When he is introduced, it is purely by coincidence and a mutual friend.

 

Namely, Vanessa looping her arm carefully into _Newt Geiszler’s_ and dragging him along beside her to answer the door. This means one thing only, that he would not have seen _Newt Geiszler_ under any other circumstances. It was a quick interaction- no talking- he barely nodded his head and Newt held up a hand until Vanessa released him from her surprisingly sharp manicure to fade back into the faceless, buzzing stream of people (unimportant, drunk, interchangeable) in the background of the party.

 

Except, and here’s the issue- Newt doesn't fade. Anything but.

 

Instead he bothers, rankles, digs his hands in and doesn't let go. He’s fascinating. Newt bumps his hips up against strangers’ when he dances, managing to go overboard and still retain a measure of sarcasm to his movement. Hermann doesn’t like or trust it one bit. A small circle is created around Newt as he speaks, not because of anything important he’s saying, but rather because he knocked someone’s cup straight out of their hand and didn’t even notice. People are wary of their drinks and his gesturing.  Hermann thinks he’s going a little crazy at first- hearing this little man _everywhere_ \- until he realizes that Newt’s shouting over the music much louder than necessary and can be heard from every room.

 

(That's what he thinks at first, until the Urban Outfitters bluetooth speaker predictably hitches, pauses, and stops and Newt just- doesn’t. He talks louder, over the silence.)

 

Hermann didn't even want to be there in the first place. There was nothing enjoyable about the moving bodies and the candy-colored alcohols that coated his tongue in a light film, the dull roar of distant music and the recreational drugs. He had tried so hard to protest to Vanessa, he had put up an incredible fuss and complained the whole drive over. Pointedly refused to spike the punch with GHB. If there was anything more unbearable than his peers and the mind numbingly-dull, slow monotony of interaction with people below his level- god, not _even_ peers, he’d be their _professor_ \- it was the same while high. He wasn't looking _forward_ to the sea of adidas three stripe joggers, and baseball caps, and breath smelling like beer and pretzels and campus small-talk.

 

Vanessa is twenty-one years old and she throws parties like she’s seventeen. Hermann helps involuntarily, because when she yanks him down by the once-pressed, now-wrinkled collar of his shirt and looks him in the eye, carefully spells out how that if the hot girl from her comparative lit class doesn’t see her in her Kylie Jenner ripped-butt jeans she’ll feed him his own eyes- Well. He sputters for a good minute but ultimately drags a keg out to put on the millennial-pink shag rug. He inevitably looks around the house, at the work they've done, and thinks that soon it's all going to go to shit. Vanessa does have a point though, that he needs more experience talking to people his age in an environment where they didn't recognize him as Dr. Gottlieb and hound him for extensions. It would have been helpful if she didn’t say that he looks like a horngry turtle trying to retreat into his argyle sweater when confronted with basic interaction.  

 

He recalls saying ‘horngry’ out loud and Vanessa pausing in her squeezing of grapefruit juice and telling him it meant _horny and angry, Hermie, get with it._ He sputtered. She wiped the stray juice on the leg of his pants.  

 

But look at him now, he thinks a little spitefully. Vanessa’s probably snorting something off the back of the girl she mentioned, and he’s- not. He’s swaying to the nameless music at least a little, and he’s staring at the wall instead of furiously at his watch. Tapping his foot, even. And he's enjoying it, goddamn it. Hes hating it, yes, but hes _enjoying_ _it_. That must be improvement. Someone carrying an extra large bag of pretzels pushes past him and he sniffs derisively, being shoved left a little, and his thoughts inevitably drift back to Newt as the man becomes visible.  Newt Geiszler is talking about how kegs stands are _simple physics, really nothing but first-grade level type mechanics- they're easy, it's just logic. Because the jet of the beer just goes right down- right down your throat so it's not like he’d choke if he ever wanted to try it out, and_ -

 

-

 

Hermann learns three things:

 

  1. Geiszler spends fifteen minutes helping count keg stands, complaining about them, and bothering Vanessa until she snaps and lets him do one. It is not, in fact, simple physics, because Geiszler chokes, falls, smacks his head on the handle he didn't grab correctly, complains about _that_ , and still somehow seems to not be phased. He laughs and asks if his tooth is chipped. His eyes are watering from his head smack. He got a smattering of applause and three claps on the back. The entire front of his shirt is soaked.  
  

  2. He's probably a music student. It wouldn't surprise him. Newt plays _Jessie's Girl_ on an acoustic guitar that has three friendship bracelets tied around the pegs and AC/DC stickers on the front of it. Hermann thinks it’s a little endearing until he swings it down as if he's going to smash the guitar like he’s whoever is the lead in Metallica. “SKATE FAST. EAT ASS” has been scribbled across the back in permanent marker. He has a stick and poke tattoo across the back of his neck that just says “american id” in a slanted, scrawling writing which leads into his third observation, that relates to the other two:  
  

  3. He's a dumbass.



  


-

 

“Oh, yeah!” says Newt, his foot is tapping against the ground over and over and over, “It was supposed to be ‘american idiot’. I mean, I’m not- not proud of it, but it was originally going to be something about Billie Joe Armstrong and his tight pants, so I guess it's an improvement from that. I mean now I’d probably put something better like- like- A Bowie quote or some shit so at least there's some sort of upward trend with the-”

 

Hermann narrows his eyes. Newt continues. Cuts himself off.  

 

“Funny story, actually,” Newt rubs at the back of his neck for a few seconds like he forgets he has company, and Hermann has no memory of how he even entered into this conversation in the first place. Maybe he was drugged.  He feels his irritation building slowly, second only to the sense of disbelief as he listens to the man talk. Its dazzling- he can’t fathom someone like _this_ actually surviving past the age of _fourteen._ The man is contrary to almost everything Hermann believes in. Newt smacks his side three times as he loses his train of thought, jolting up like it actually helped him remember, “So like, when I was getting it done, my buddy doing it was also getting a tattoo. It was a sort of-  a massage circle, but with getting ink. But this motherfucker gets, pricked only a little bit, and just stabs me right in the back of neck with the needle. Pretty deep! Hurt like a _bitch_ , dude.”

 

“I- Oh my _god_ .” says Hermann, carefully. When Newt laughs, his whole face scrunches up.  


“ _Right?_ We- we left it in for like three minutes. I had to fucking heal it myself. Didn’t trust a doctor just poking around back there, you know? And I was poor as shit, man, you have no idea, like-”

 

“You did what?”

 

“Set up a thing with two mirrors. One in the front, one in the back, pulled it right out. Staunched the bleeding. Basic shit.”

 

Hermann frowns. He’s being riled up and he doesn’t know why, “Excuse me- you have to understand that that's _truly_ irresponsible behavior. Ridiculous. Juvenile. You mean to tell me that- that you were _impaled_ , by a presumably dirty needle, and you decided to just- to just-”

 

He trails off as Newt snaps fully around when he hears his name shouted from across the room. He holds up a hand to Hermann’s face and says, “Shh- shh, just- jesus, you're a dick- WHAT did you say? Was that directed at me? I’m kind of busy!”

 

Hermann can see the word ‘id” written out against the base of newts skull and thinks that yes- impulsive, crude, arrogant- its a fair assessment of the man. He opens his mouth to make that remark, gets about a few words into it, when newt spins around.  


“Gottlieb.” He says, deadly serious, “Don’t think I’m not coming back here to settle this, dude! Freud made that shit up for views!”

 

And he agrees, but that's not the _point._

 

-

 

Newt tastes like cherry candy, cinnamon altoids, and something spicy and sharp and unidentifiable. He kisses back aggressively at first, in a way that makes their teeth clack together. It's not necessarily or immediately enjoyable. He is a little hovering, awkward, in how he grabs at Hermann’s hips and fumbles slightly in doing so. He feels the press of the cool wall against his back, and the bathroom sink against his right arm. He has a sense in his gut that Newt is going to go for tongue way too early. Newt’s shaky. And Hermann's- shit- Hermann’s making out with a student- trying to, at least, for Christ’s sake- and that's technically _illegal_ . _Immoral,_ if anything _._ Even if he doesn't go to his school. Bloody hell. He pulls back to say something, and Newt wrinkles his nose and just goes- “You're a smoker, aren't you?”

 

Hermann tries for a rebuttal at first, but then Newt grabs his shirtfront with both hands and wrinkles it irreparably, which makes him choke on his own words from the sudden pressure of hands on his chest. Judging by the self-satisfied look on Newt’s face, he did it solely because he wanted to see his clothes messed up. Yet, somewhere between unbunching the fabric from his hands and pressing closer, Hermann can feel Newt sink into him and shake a little harder- He softens infinitesimally at first, then all at once.

 

Newt melts. So does Hermann.

 

Something breaks. Something shifts. The ground under their feet wobbles delicately like the pulled-taut wire under a tightrope walker swaying back and forth in the breeze, or the carefully straight line to Hermanns posture crumpling and bending and like everything all at once- catching. There's a tingling racing up and down his spine, and a little shiver Geiszler gives that he feels ripple out and echo back. There's the pressed-flat line of his collar coming undone and his palm pressed flat against the divot of Newt’s back and the now-foreign feeling of silence save for gasps and hitches in breath. There's tattoos. There's leather jackets. There's music, bass boosted and rumbling just outside the door. Hermann thinks he's going to pass out.

 

He slings arms around Newt’s shoulders and pulls him closer.

 

-

 

(04:23 am) **_hermssssssss wtf_**

(04:23 am) **_herm_**

(04:23 am) **_herm_**

(04:24 am) **_lol autocorrect made it hermit_**

(04:24 am) **_accurate ;-*_**

 

(04:24 am) _Vanessa, I tell you repeatedly that you can't send seventy-five messages when I don't respond for three minutes._

 

(04:24 am) **_unfortunate_**

(04:25 am) **_My name is Hermann Gottlieb and I use hyphens while texting, and don’t appreciate my wonderful friend who totally scored with whom you know colloquially as ‘Biceps.”_ **

 

(04:25 am) _That's not how you use whom._

 

(04:25 am) **_i used colloquially right!!!!!!!_ **

(04:26 am) **_fuck u hermie_ **

(04:26 am) **_u wanna hear about my night_ **

 

(04:26 am) _It would be wonderful to hear about the details of your night, actually._

(04:26 am) _As long as said details don't pertain to the sex!_

 

(04:26 am) **_u think ur SO funny dont u_ **

(04:27 am) **_UNFORTUNATE_ **

(04:27 am) **_i had to get that goth kid from econ to go and buy me a razor lol_ **

(04:27 am) **_power move_ **

(04:28 am) **_oh yeah i saw u look at his butt btw ;-)_ **

 

(04:28 am) _Christ._

(04:28 am) _I did NO such thing, Vanessa._

(04:28 am) _I’ve seen the goth boy you’re talking about, I have STANDARDS._

 

(04:28 am) **_omg not him_ **

(04:29 am) **_i saw him watch rick and morty_ **

(04:29 am) **_thats why im not smashing him lmaooooooo_ **

(04:29 am) **_u know which butt im talking about tho!!!!!!_ **

(04:30 am) **_guitar with EAT ASS on it._ **

 

(04:31 am) _His name is Newt._

 

(04:31 am) **_lmao_ **

(04:31 am) **_you fucked_ **

 

(04:32 am) _Good god_

(04:32 am) _You of all people should know that I didn’t._

 

(04:35 am) _Vanessa._

(04:35 am) _I didnt ‘smash’, if you want to me to be crude about it._

 

(04:38 am) _Vanessa._

(04:38 am) _Vanessa_

(04:38 am) _Vanessa_

 

(04:38 am) **_now YOUR doing it!!!_ **

(04:38 am) **_YOURE_ **

 

(04:39 am) _I sent *three* messages._

(04:39 am) _And while I don't know the campus policy for MIT, I doubt its lenient enough to allow us to have..._

(04:39 am) _Had intercourse._

 

(04:39 am) **_LOL WHAT_ **

(04:39 am) **_LMFAOOOOOOOO_ **

(04:40 am) **_ur SUCH a weirdo herm u gots to realize that_ **

(04:40 am) **_holy shit_ **

 

(04:40 am) _Shut up._

(04:40 am) _Did he say something about me_

 

(04:41 am) **_gay_ **

(04:41 am) **_u wanna know why i invited him_ **

(04:41 am) **_u wanna know_ **

(04:42 am) [_https://be.mit.edu/faculty/directory/newton-geiszler_](https://be.mit.edu/directory/newton-geiszler)

(04:42 am) **_;-*_ **

 

(04:45 am) _What the fuck_

 

(04:46 am) **_< 3_ **

**Author's Note:**

> pacrim tumblr: driftcompvtible.tumblr.com  
> main: beefucker95.tumblr.com
> 
> if u actually read this........... hearts out
> 
> twit @weedsbian


End file.
